angstloch's Forum Posts

  • Welcome engineheads and octane addicts to this weekly update of the [WORKING TITLE: BLACK SUNSHINE] Dying World Series!

    So here's basically the same old level with a few (very few) eyecandy improvements such as a parallax layer and a new speedometer -- the later doesn't makes a lot of sense since i'm gonna change the whole hud someday to make it fullscreen-scale-outer, but at least doesn't look like a clock anymore (and if you look at those Earn To Die snapshots above you'll see the influence).

    But anyway the big, the brave, the main enhancement this week is the brand new Servo-Vehicle Dynamic Obliteration Protocol, by which cars are gradually reduced to scrap as the hit barrels and foes alike. Again, it still needs a lot of tweaking: I intend to (well, eventually) assign different toughness values to each car model and so. But the pain was mainly that I had to redesign the cars from scratch again. Sorry to say the new pickup didn't make it on time for this update, so we have only two different cars. Btw the old nazi ford mustang was replaced by a (nazi) plymouth barracuda which looks basically the same – I wanted to save the mustang model for that Black Sunshine car I babbled about above.

    I introduced some health powerups as well, which fix damaged areas of your car. I'm not very happy with how they look tho: they typically appear for a blink second in a high speed context, so maybe something brighter and more clear, like a stylized logo, may fit better.

  • lamar

    cjbruce

    Thanks a lot, people, you helped me greatly. Well i hope you did -- i'll let you know XD

    I worry a bit that i'm gonna be storing a lot of variables every tick (plus everytick minus one, arguably) which might hit performance -- as every damn thing does. Well hopefully some is-onscreen condition will fix me there.

  • R0J0hound

    lamar

    Hey, thanks for your answers guys. Im a noob at physics and will need some time to dig all this

    I'm not really aiming for any kind of realism either, so i'd be inclined to take the simplest easiest path available. Unfortunately it may be a bit more complex still: what about two cars (yeah forget about the wall) moving in the same direction but at different speeds that eventually collide...? Shite I'm not even sure if i'm asking the proper questions. Hold on.

    This is what I'm working on. I'd like the cars to receive damaged whenever they hit each other (or them kegs) with certain violence -- not like blowing into pieces each time they get a bit scraped. Cars would also break by sections (not many: snout and butt around a base frame), so it's important to determine which areas are affected by the impact: thus, if you crash against the car in front of you, your snout section and the other car's butt section would be affected.

    The plan was, create an invisible sprite wherever the collision takes place and assign it a variable with the strength of the impact, and check which sections are overlapping. If that approach is fine, I guess the question would be: which value should i assign to said variable.

    Some thing easy! If i understood R0J0 properly (which I may or may not), the proper thing would be to calculate an impact force for each car? No wait twas acceleration rate for each car... Well if i can summarize it all in one value that makes sense that would be great. Maybe some difference between velocities or something...?

    Thanks again for your patience

  • Just use 'TAB' + left click. It cycles.

    Hey. That's so cool

  • use different layers? or do this:

    • seltect the upper object and move it away
    • select the lower object
    • press ctrlZ. upper goes back to where it was, but you still got lower selected

    dirty i know but it works...

  • get them sprites into their own layer and manipulate opacity from the layer properties, instead of sprite's. oh lord, please dont let me be misunderstood.

  • ajax and json aside (of which i know nothing, so maybe the following makes no sense at all) rather than trigger a different event on each level finished, you could set a function:

    On any level completed ---> trigger f(x)
/*where X is the current level's number*/

on f(x) triggered ---> set array value X to ajax.lastData

[/code:b4hlwhni]

  • So i have two side-viewed physic cars (or a car and a wall, for that matter) which eventually collide. Depending on the violence of the impact, cars may get dented, seriously damaged or just explode into pieces. How could this be expressed as code? Googlin around I've seen that in order to determine the impact force I'd need an "acceleration" parameter (apart from things as mass and velocity) that i can't find. And even if I could i'm not sure i'd know what to do with it either... How is this usually done then?

    Thanks!

  • Happy, even relieved that you keep this going. Oh i know too the pains (an pleasures) of developing one big project solo on your own -- but you're no more solo on your own, seemingly. Congratulations dude! ASRH keeps looking and feeling brilliant. Last level, level four?

  • Pandadoor

    DarkRoomGames

    Thank you guys for your interest and comments!

    I thought I was gonna call it Rust Racers – but seemingly there's a mod or a vpp or some damn thing already with that name. I picked then Black Sunshine on the go, just to call it something here in the this thread. It's a cool title, although not 100% definitive yet ("Jesus Built My Hotrod" being another tempting possibility). Anyway I like the reference very much, so I made a car directly inspired in it – another Mustang, obviously. I'm gonna make it an unblockable car and... but well, here I am again leaping into the far future...

    Black top rolling below the asphalt drive / A concrete fascination scraping the edge of nothing...

    Here! This is one of the veriest firstiest things I ever did in C2, some one thousand years ago or so. Makes no sense at all i'm afraid, but it's arguably the first sketch for this project so I put it here just as a curiosity... No such a thing as proper “gameplay”, but pressing the arrows and spacebar seems to trigger some sluggish reaction.

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  • erickson400

    Pandadoor

    Thanks guys! I'm still defining the graphic style, but you see i'm going for thick cartoonish lines, brownish colours... Still a lot's gonna change, like that speedometer, which looks like a clock, or the finishline, which as for now is a copy of the startpoint with some checks on it. I intend to plagiarize VASTLY from that earn to die series XD

    You should be able to pass (over) other cars using nitro (press space bar, or touch the speedometer shortly), which makes and impulse forward and a bit upwards too, kind of jumping. They work better if you hit them when running fast. At the current state of it you should be able to get 1st somewhat easily if you run the beetle (and if you dont meet too many pickups), which is the lightest and fastest of the three models. The pickup is not too bad either, i usually get 2nd or 3rd with it. The nazi mustang (the "rustang" it's calld) sucks big time tho. All them to be tweaked in the future. I explain, or try to, the race mechanics below...

    There are already warning signs! They're tiny and blurry and just perching over the very edge of each cliff

    Mechanics (as everything else) are very provisional as for now. I indeed may set it to scale outer, so you have a bit more of visual field, but i'd like it to be, hum, short-ranged of sorts. Sure will be fuelcans to collect, barriers to break and exploding kegs, and most likely some firearms too. Collisions between cars stays tho! Furthermore i'm planning to make them break into pieces when hit! I might enhance the nitro to make it easier to pass (or be passed by) other cars, or introduce some other powerup.

    The race thing is very wip still. It works as follows. (I'd particularly appreciate feedback on this, cos it's a bit weird).

    • You start alone. Don't really like this, i may do some mock animation in which all cars seems to start a second before you or something and leave you behind from the beginning (happens to me in all racing games). Has to be mock, as you'll see.
    • Scattered along the way you meet some invisible (orange) spawnboxes. When you (the pc car) hit one from the left, an enemy car is spawned offscreen in the oposite side of the spawnbox, which is destroyed. So shortly after that, you meet the enemy car on the road.
    • If an enemy car hits one of these spawnboxes before yo tho, the later is destroyed and no other car is spawned, but you get one penalty point, which means that you've already lost 1 position. This means that if you stay just behind another car without somehow passing it for a long distance, chances are that it (enemy car) is hitting all the spawnboxes and making you loose positions. So you need to pass them fast!
    • If any enemy car crosses the finish line earlier than you, obviously you get another penalty point...
    • And at the end, the textbox (dat spritefont belongs of course to another project, still need to make one for this one) shows your final position which is equal to all your penalties + 1 (as it's 0 based). No penalties = 0 + 1, youre first. Six penalties = 6 + 1, yer 7th.

    -Hope it makes sense...

    Notice thus that there's no eight cars running towards the goalpoint from the beginning -- and as many fall down the cliffs, it would be very rare to have eight cars on the layout at any given time (but maybe i should destroy them anyway when theyre left behind far enough, yknow for performance). It might seem unfair the fact that maybe you've already lost several positions when you're not even half race done, but the player shouldnt be aware of how it works, so the whole thing should feel consistent. (And anyway, he shoulve been FASTAH!).

    One interesting thing of this method (?) is that it will hopefully allow me to make something halfway between a "classic" race circuit and a more arcade oriented level. I could have several cars to be spawned at a certain order (weaker, of slower, first), and a big bad boss at the end -- which you may meet only if you pass all the previous cars on time or something. But hey now i'm rushing too ahead! I'd like this project to be simple.

    Oh shit look at that post. Sorry guys. Ah, one last thing! The game is much easier on PC than on mobile/tablet -- because of that thing about physics being always framerate-dependent for some reason, i reckon. What's the approach, here? Is there any turnaround? Or sould I just go mobile-first?

    Thanks for your patience!

  • [quote:28njrbs9]Gripping the wheel his knuckles went white with desire

    The wheels of his Mustang exploding on the highway like a slug from a .45

    True Death: 400 Horsepower of maximum performance piercing the night

    This is Black Sunshine.

    Hey people. Here's a prototype for a physics side-view racing game. Mad max inspired of sorts. It's my first attempt with physics. Still rather boring, i need to add me some more scenery and props, and music and powerups and fancy effects, and also them cars are probably gonna be redesigned at some point (plus there should be 8 different models), to make them a bit brighter and, ehm, breakable.

    As always, your opinions and suggestions are appreciated

    Click or touch to move, press space or hit the speedometer to nitro.

    PLAY!

  • hey NetOne , thanks (as usual!) for your advice and support

    you think so? I've been myself three damn years or so groping C2, and i feel that you already know more about arrays than me :S I have some rudimentary (think of an ape with a stick) programming knowledge, although i'm more in the artistic department. the mighty MEGAQÜEST is my only long-running project -- longer than it should, actually. A monstrously oversized for-fun project, developed on the go without any previous coherent planification whatsoever (aka organically). still to be seen if it's ever finished. I hope so because by now is somewhat "too big to fail". some of us will never learn.

    json. I guessed sooner or later it would come to that. I am currently implementing important (severe even) changes in the code, we'll see what comes out of it. If nothing else works, i'll have to learn me damn ajax... i envy that "for knowledge's sake" philosophy. years keep falling apart (cheers!), and sometimes I feel that nothing ever comes up.

    so don't let that shmup take that long

  • hey, i'm a complete beginner on physics... Should i start straightaway with chipmunk, or would it be better if i master first (and i'm far from mastering nothing as for now) the basic C2 physics?

  • chill out brother. screen resolutions are dark and full of terrors until you get to them. look, your game most likely won't look perfectly fullscreened in all devices. well it could, but that would mean other restrictions, that may or may not be applicable to your project. So usually what you do is target a common resolution, and from there you try your best to make it look good in any other. some musings:

    • "scale inner" gives you full screen coverage, but "eats" playable space, which means that stuff close to the borders of the screen size (the dotted grey line as appears in the editor) may actually be offscreen. if all the action happens in the close area around the centre of the screen, this can work.
    • "scale outer" gives you the full playable space, but if you move towards the border of the layout you can get past the background image (the "sky") and see the white, or black, background behind, which aint no good. you may avoid this by leaving some padding inside the layout, so the player cannot actually get too close to the border. "scale outer" doesnt guaratee you full screen coverage tho: in a ridiculously thin or wide screen you'll always see a bit of the background colour (you can try this stretching your browser window).
    • the "anchor" behaviour is useful too. if you're for "scale inner" it's actually crucial. it "sticks" objects, like hud's or screen buttons or whatever, to the edges of the screen.
    • letterbox is not that bad if you use some kind of frame or something -- it may even make your game look fancier. and if you're making a pixel game, you should choose "integer letterbox scale" (so pixels look right), which pretty much guarantees you're gonna get some black stripes.